Encounter Group, page 8
“The World Master wouldn’t lie,” Amanda said slowly, which caused the heads of all assembled to nod in agreement. “So they must all be true.”
“Why, that makes perfect sense,” Martin Cannell said. And that seemed to settle the matter, for they all piled into the van, eager for their first training session.
Ethel Sump enjoyed training, even training with the rifle Amanda gave her, which at first had frightened her. It gave her a sense of purpose and worth. She enjoyed life more in the past two days than in all the years gone before. She even ate less.
Two days of training didn’t seem very much, but Amanda had told them all this morning that tonight they would make their first move. The World Master had contacted her somehow and told her so. Amanda had seemed a little worried about that, but as Ethel had reminded her, “The World Master wouldn’t let us go out on this important mission unless he knew we were ready,” and Amanda said she had to agree.
That would be tonight. But for now, they were pretending to conduct business as usual at FOES headquarters. They were all here, except for that Remo person, who had not been seen since an unauthorized intruder had interrupted their first encounter two nights before. Amanda said that Remo had probably gotten lost in the woods and that he wasn’t important because “he was only a man.” Ethel didn’t see what that had to do with anything; Remo seemed rather attractive. Especially the way he walked. But then, he had claimed to have had a close encounter with a penguin, and nothing had been said about penguins ever since, so maybe Remo didn’t matter after all.
So excited was Ethel Sump that she didn’t notice the old Oriental gentleman until he had entered the reception area, despite not having been buzzed in.
“Tell whoever is in charge of this place that an important personage has come to see him,” said the old man. He couldn’t be more than five feet tall or weigh more than 90 pounds, yet he spoke with greater authority than Ethel’s old high school principal.
“What important person?” she asked.
“The Master of Sinanju.”
“I never heard of you,” Ethel said, looking skeptically at the embroidered front of the Oriental’s teal blue kimono and wondering if he wasn’t one of those cultists looking for a donation.
“I am a personal emissary from your Emperor Smith.”
“Emperor Smith? Is he FOES?”
“No, he is friend. He runs your country secretly. I work for him. Defending the Constitution.”
“I see,” said Ethel, who didn’t see at all. “Just a minute.” She flicked on the intercom, and in response to Amanda Bull’s barked “What is it?” said, “There’s an old gentleman here. He seems kind of confused.”
“I am not confused, stupid bovine,” Chiun snapped. “I am here about the USOs.”
“Huh?”
“The lights in the sky. My son, Remo, has seen them.”
At the mention of the name Remo over the intercom, Amanda Bull said, “Both of you wait a minute.”
“The Master of Sinanju does not wait,” Chiun said, and popped the door to Amanda’s office off its hinges with a seemingly gentle push of the flat of his hand. The door fell forward, and the Master of Sinanju stepped over it, unconcerned.
“Um…how did you do that?” Amanda asked in a tight voice as she came to the doorway.
“With my hand. I am the Master of Sinanju.”
“That’s right,” Ethel put in. “I saw it. He just touched the door and it fell.”
Amanda Bull looked at Chiun, then Ethel, and then back at Chiun again as if she suspected them of working together to trick her. Then she remembered that the old Oriental had called Remo Greeley his son, and it was obvious he could not be related to Remo, whom she vaguely suspected of being a spy.
“All right,” she said firmly. “Now what’s this all about?”
“I am here to make contact,” Chiun said flatly, his thin arms folded. “It is important.”
“Why?”
“Because it is important to my village. My village knows of these USOs,” Chiun said.
“UFOs, not USOs,” Amanda corrected.
“I think he wants to join FOES,” Ethel whispered. She decided that he might be a confused old man, but he was a likable confused old man.
“No, I want to be friends,” Chiun corrected, wondering if all American women were idiots, or just the two in this room.
“Hmmm,” Amanda said, pacing the room. The old man might be a spy, too. If he was, the World Master would have to know about this, but Amanda had no way of contacting him except at prearranged times and places.
“If I promise to help you make contact, will you promise to help us tonight?” Amanda asked, thinking about how easily the door had been demolished and how handy that ability might come in tonight.
“Help you with what?”
“We are going on a mission tonight to bring peace to the world.”
“A goal many have sought,” Chiun said. “How many will you kill to achieve it?”
“No violence,” Amanda said. “This mission was given us by a being from the UFO. Once this task is done, we will meet with him again. And you may come with us.”
“Done,” said Chiun. “But first, tell me all about this UFO. What does it look like? Does it bring wisdom?”
“It sure does,” put in Ethel Sump. “I’ve been a better person since I had my first encounter.”
“I can see that,” said Chiun, watching her plump body jiggle with excitement.
“Come on, then,” Amanda ordered, having arranged for the old Chinaman, or whatever he was, to tag along until she could turn him over to the World Master. We’ve got to get cracking. What did you say your name was?”
“Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju.”
“We’ll just call you Chiun for short.”
· · ·
It made no sense to the Master of Sinanju. He, along with the other members of FOES, which consisted of five loud women and three untrained men, had journeyed some distance and were now trudging through an Oklahoma field where the wheat waved in golden rows under a clear night sky.
They were on a farm. But they were not here to attack the farm, the blonde woman with the ugly hair on the bridge of her nose had informed Chiun. They were here to destroy something that threatened the peace of the world. Everyone except Chiun carried weapons, and they carried them clumsily, as if unfamiliar with their use. They wore dark clothing and moved like arthritic cats. Amateurs.
“Who has trained you people?” Chiun asked as they walked.
“Our friend from the UFO,” Amanda said.
This seemed to disturb Chiun. “How long have you been training?”
“Only since two nights ago. Except for me. I’ve been at it for about a week.”
“Not enough time,” Chiun said under his breath. Aloud, he asked, “And you were provided with these weapons?”
“No, I got them myself. I wanted to use some of the weapons the World Master brought with him, but he said they were too dangerous for humans to use. Too bad. We could do better work with his disintegrating rays—or whatever they were.”
“You would do better with no weapons at all.”
“Are you crazy?” Amanda asked loudly. Then, “There it is,” she hissed. Down, everybody. Let’s size up the situation.”
Everyone dropped flat except Chiun. In the middle of the farm, there was a fenced-off rectangle, which appeared to be empty.
“What is that?” Chiun asked.
“It’s a missile silo,” Ethel Sump whispered breathlessly. “But how do we get through that fence? It’s awful tall.”
“How do you think?” said Amanda, digging something out of her backpack. “I brought wire cutters.”
“I see no silo,” Chiun pointed out.
“That’s because it’s underground,” Amanda said. “See that dark shape? It’s the silo cover. The missile is underneath, and somewhere around here is an underground control center. We’ve got to destroy the missile so it can’t fly and kill millions of people.”
“Your goal would be better undertaken with worthy tools, not wire cutters and muskets,” Chiun said.
Amanda gave Chiun’s skinny frame a frosty stare. “I suppose you brought some worthy tools with you?”
“Yes,” Chiun said, raising his forearms like a surgeon offering his hands to be gloved by a nurse. “Remain here. I will get us through the fence.”
“Wait a minute. I’m in charge here!”
But Chiun had already floated off toward the fence. He resembled a silk handkerchief in his blue kimono, one that a strange wind blew along the ground. Chiun drifted first one way, then another, and although all eyes tried to trace his path, he became lost in the darkness long before anyone saw him reach the fence.
Chiun examined the fence. It was of chain link and derived its strength from the interlocked vertical lengths of wire anchored to the four support poles. It could be attacked two ways: by uprooting a pole, which would collapse two sides of the fence, or by attacking any one of the links. Chiun decided upon the latter approach, because it was philosophically purer to destroy a fence through its weak links.
Since he was closer to the bottom than to the top, Chiun worked from the ground up, bringing both hands under the fence edge and grasping two of the interlocks, one in each hand. He brought them together, which placed strain on the rest of the links and released the tension on the links in his hands. As the metal contracted from the lessening of strain, Chiun applied new stress on those relaxed links, more than had been imposed upon them by the normal stress of the fence’s structural dynamics.
The fence parted in the middle like an old rag. The two sections sagged forward, and Chiun flitted past, into the former enclosure.
Chiun recognized the radar scoops set on posts for what they were: mere detection devices. They were not a direct threat, so he ignored them.
The silo cover loomed up before him, like a giant childproof cap. The roof was angular and set in twin rails, which ran a short distance off to one side of the cover. Roof and rails were embedded in a tongue of concrete set flush to the ground. The rails told Chiun how the roof worked, and that it operated through electricity.
The roof weighed over 700 tons, so it could not be lifted, not even by the Master of Sinanju. Instead of looking at the problem as the removal of a 700-ton obstacle, Chiun considered it as a minor problem in displacing a few hundred pounds of concrete within the 700-ton obstacle in order to get a hole perhaps four feet wide.
This was a workable thing, Chiun knew, so he found a corner, because comers gave the best number of angled surfaces for striking, and chipped off a wedge with the heel of his hand. He felt the vibration of the silo roof as the concrete broke. This exposed several irregular surfaces that, when attacked, exposed more surfaces, until after several hand blows, there was a lighted hole in one corner, beneath which was a fantastic tube that glowed like a pin-ball machine and a Titan II missile poised in the center of the tube like a gargantuan white lipstick.
Chiun waved for the others.
Then he dropped lightly onto the nose of the Titan, set himself, and leaped across a hundred-foot drop to a work tier set in the silo wall.
“Hey! How are we supposed to follow you?” Amanda Bull hissed from above.
“Then do not follow. I will attend to this,” Chiun called back loudly enough to attract the attention of an Air Force guard, who, after a moment’s contemplation, recognized Chiun’s kimono as nonregulation.
“Halt, sir,” the guard said, his face immobile under his white helmet in an expression that was as much government issue as his uniform. Although he didn’t recognize the old Oriental, he naturally assumed that anyone wandering around a SAC installation was automatically a “sir.” Which was a mistake because Chiun stepped up and there was a Rubik’s Cube magically in his hand.
“Watch. Twelve seconds is the current world record.”
The guard watched as Chiun’s long-nailed fingers blurred, and in a twinkling the multicolored cube presented solid-colored sides.
Then the cube flew past the guard’s face, and before he could recover his attention, his rifle went sailing into the air and fell just a half second after his unconscious body hit the cold floor. He never saw the foot that swept out and cracked him on the line of his jaw, just hard enough to put him to sleep, not hard enough to injure him permanently.
Chiun found a stainless steel tunnel leading away from the missile and entered it, but only after he recovered his Rubik’s cube and made certain it had not been damaged.
· · ·
Captain Elvin Gunn, USAF, really enjoyed his work. No one ever understood that. No one on the “outside,” that is. His wife, Ellen, thought he had a dangerous job, and when he first broke the news that he had been transferred from personnel and promoted to launch control officer with a SAC missile wing, her first words were, “Oh, my God,” spoken in an Irish wail. Even after he had explained that it was an excellent career move and not really dangerous at all, she still had a difficult time with it, and watched him closely for the first signs of nervous breakdown, or at least a Valium addiction, for God’s sake. And she was surprised when it never happened.
It was true that Captain Elvin Gunn controlled a nine-megaton nuclear missile aimed at a precise target in Russia, and it was also true that somewhere in the Soviet Union was an SS-13 multiple warhead missile aimed at Captain Gunn’s command post. But it was really a very quiet and relaxing assignment, Gunn thought, until the world went to war, and then no one would be quiet and relaxed.
For eight hours a day, five days a week, with 45 minutes for lunch and two 10-minute coffee breaks, Captain Gunn monitored the check systems that prevented an accidental launch of the missile, which could only be launched when he received a presidential order-code that matched that day’s code locked in a combination safe. Then Captain Gunn would take a special key from that safe, which activated the missile-firing system.
Captain Gunn did not have as awesome a responsibility as his wife believed. Alone, he could not activate his Titan II. Twelve feet away from his control console stood an identical one with its own launch control officer. This control officer had his own combination safe and key. Only when both keys were turned simultaneously in both consoles would the giant missile roar to life. And it was not humanly possible for one person to turn two keys in locks twelve feet apart.
So most of the time, Captain Gunn sat in a cool control room with his pipe and a paperback book. Captain Gunn, who never read except at work, usually went through six books a week. Big ones.
And he liked his job. Even the periodic examinations, which he always passed with better than 98 percent marks because he always had ample study time. It was peaceful work, despite the responsibility, and Captain Gunn enjoyed the solitude. He was not allowed to talk to his co-launch control officer for more than 30 seconds per hour.
As for the danger, he had the same answer for anyone from the “outside” who asked: “Listen, I’ll start to worry the minute I have to turn that key—but I won’t be worrying long.” Unruffled was the word for Captain Elvin Gunn.
But when the door to his control area screeched like a twisted pipe and fell forward to allow an Asian of indeterminate origin to enter, Captain Gunn was at first so surprised, he didn’t know what to do.
So he dropped his smouldering pipe and copy of The Body as a first reaction. He yelled in pain as a second reaction.
The reason he yelled in pain was he was in pain, excruciating pain. It was unlike any pain he had ever felt before, as if the 90-percent water content of his body had been suddenly heated to a boil, and the little Asian was causing it simply by holding Captain Gunn’s wrists together with one impossibly strong hand and exerting the pressure of a single fingernail on his inner left wrist.
“What—hooo—what do-oooh…you want-t-t?” asked Captain Gunn with difficulty, trying to recall what important nerve lay in his inner left wrist. He couldn’t remember any nerve being there.
“This large object you guard,” the Asian asked. “How does one destroy it without causing a big boom?”
“Can’t—can’t be done for…certain. Might go up anyway.”
“How does one insure that the object will not explode?”
“The warhead has to be neu—neutralized. By experts.” He didn’t want to answer any of the Asian’s questions with the truth, but the pain was just too great, and he hadn’t been trained to resist pain, just psychological stress.
“How?” he was asked.
“They use a special oil mixture…poured into the warhead to neutralize the explosive detonator that triggers the nuclear explosion.”
“You feel the pain easing? Good. Where can I find this oil?”
“There’s a container of it in an unmarked wall locker on the top work level, next to the warhead.”
“Excellent. Now you will let my friends into this place and I will let you rest.”
“The red switch. Press it,” said Captain Gunn, who wondered if the Asian wasn’t a revenge-crazed Vietnamese. No, that couldn’t be. The Vietnamese had won. Maybe he was a revenge-crazed Jap. But Captain Gunn, who drove a Japanese car, dismissed that possibility as even more remote. The Japanese had won, too.
“This is fantastic,” Amanda Bull said as she picked her way past a number of guards and other personnel Chiun had taken out of action earlier, and led her troops into the control area. “We’re actually in a SAC missile complex.”
“Thanks to me,” Chiun reminded her.
“Yeah…hey, how’d you do all this?” Amanda said in a less agreeable voice. She felt like shooting someone to reassert her control over the operation. After all, she was Preparation Group Leader, not this Chiun character.
“I did it. That is enough,” Chiun said as he let go of Captain Gunn’s aching wrists.
“What do we do now?” Ethel Sump asked, while the others poked at control buttons and tried to read the instrument panels.
“We neutralize the warhead,” Chiun said firmly, and disappeared to do just that before Amanda Bull could open her mouth.
